Even A Broken Clock
by kepulver
Summary: AoA Setting: Sabretooth fell out with Apocalypse when he tried to rescue a group of kids; here's how that decision might have come about.


**Author's Note: **Takes place during the Age of Apocalypse, prior to events in the X-Men AoA one-shot story, "_Man Bites Dog_." Some of Sabretooth's background based on the Larry Hama miniseries, _Sabretooth: Death Hunt _and on the _Official Handbook to the Marvel Universe: X-Men: Age of Apocalypse_ guidebook.

**Even a Broken Clock...**

Sabretooth has never been one to wax philosophical. To him, the only navels worth gazing into were those nestled on the bellies of nubile young women, preferably to be gazed into while on a sun-drenched beach with a bucket of beers nearby. Worrying about the sound of one hand clapping or whether or reality is really real man, I mean, y'know, REALLY real, was never his style. And not just because it would have taken an entire year's worth of prime Jamaican ganga to get him stoned enough to say 'man' like some damn hippy. He was always a live in the now kind of guy. Let other people worry about how many licks it took to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop, he had things to do. No worries, no regrets, not for Victor Creed.

But now? Standing under the L.A. Forum, staring at a group of school kids who look back at him with fear and resignation in their eyes, he feels sick. Like he did back when he found out Apocalypse planned to actually use the nukes he'd sent Sabretooth and the other Horsemen to capture. Like he did when he found out about the Breeding Pens and what went on there. What goes on there.

It's small consolation that these kids won't be put through any of that --they're all flatscans, near as he can tell. Not a mutant in the bunch. He'll be able to tear through them like a guy with a cold could tear through a box of pre-War Kleenex. A minute, minute and a half and it'll all be over for them. He's doing them a favor, really. Sending them on to a better place, where nobody can hurt them again.

God, it stinks down here. He's never much liked being underground. He's no claustrophobe, he's not _afraid_, just uncomfortable. He's a big guy, after all. He needs a lot of room to maneuver in. Tight places are not his forte, as the Frenchies would say. And the mildew and mold down here isn't making things any better. The reek is right up in his nose, making it itch, making his face itch, hell, making his damn hands itch.

There's a woman with the kids, she's older, maybe somebody's mom or grandma. She stares at him, eyes wide and showing whites all the way around, holding two of the closest children to her, while others cling to her as much to protect her as to be protected. She shakes, tears running down her face as she begs -- he knows she's begging because he knows the tone -- pleading with him in rapid-fire Vietnamese French. He recognizes a word here and there from his Army days but he never was very fluent and she's too discombobulated to make anything close to sense.

"I'm sorry," he says and he's not sure what disgusts him more -- that he said it or that he apparently means it. Damnit, this is survival of the fittest! The whole damn war is about taking the world away from the meek and the mild and the unfit and giving it to the strong, the powerful, the alpha males and females. In this world there are winners and there are losers and these people? Are losers.

Yeah, it's a shame they're kids but the universe doesn't have a separate set of rules for the pre-teens. There's no "You Must Be This Tall For Life To Shit On You" sign. Even before this war, kids died -- they died in skirmishes and wars and car accidents and in fires and from disease or hunger or because some pervert snatched them or just because Mommy or Daddy shook them too hard. Just because people want to look on childhood as some magical, rose-colored time of innocence and protection doesn't mean it is -- not for a lot of kids. Not for him.

If childhood were as rosy as those soft, pre-war suckers wanted it to be, he wouldn't have spent years chained up in a basement that stank like this one does. He wouldn't have been tossed animals to kill for his food or seen his mother look at his father with eyes like the old lady's, wouldn't have heard her beg him not to...oh hell, she begged him not to do so many things, where should he begin? With the belt? With the pliers? Or the axe?

Yeah, the axe...his wrists itch just thinking about it. And boy wasn't Paw surprised when his hands grew back?

Ma begged him but she didn't do Sweet Fanny Adams to stop him. She could have left. She could have taken him -- just like this lady could have gotten these kids out of town. It's not like they hadn't been warned. It's not like the whole damn city didn't know they were coming -- Holocaust made damn sure L.A. knew when they were going to land, because he wanted to see 'em panic. Wanted to demoralize not just the city, but the entire United States of America and by extension the world. If they could do this to Los Angeles, City of Angels, City of Dreams, they could do it anywhere.

Did they run? Did they get out? Did they friggin' LISTEN? Nope, they stayed just like Ma stayed and that's not his problem, not his fault. They chose this by being too weak to get out. By being too stupid to understand that the Apocalypse's Horsemen were going to ride over them like a tidal wave and that Sabretooth would be right out in front.

He looks at the kids and the old lady and he feels sick. The stink of their fear and the stink of this place are making his hands and his teeth _itch_ and he's got to do something soon but for the first time in a long time he's not sure what. The easy answer, kill 'em all, let God sort it out -- and if they're lucky, God won't be the merciless Old Testament thunderer that Paw worshipped. If they're lucky, they'll end up in a good place where people like him and his Paw will never be.

He's waited too long. He knows it, they know it -- and it makes one of them brave. Or suicidal.

"Get outta here!" A kid, a scrawny little black kid wearing Coke bottle glasses in birth control frames, who barely manages to come up to Sabretooth's waist is the one who says this. The kid, who can't be more than ten and who could be a boy or a girl -- it's hard for Sabretooth to tell even by scent with prepubescents -- takes a step forward, stomping the ground the way somebody would to chase off a stray dog. "You go on! Get outta here and leave us alone!"

Sabretooth snorts, lips pulling back in a surprised smirk. "...an' if I don't?" he asks, genuinely curious. The kid isn't the biggest of the bunch, nor quite the smallest. The others gasp and whimper, scared for their friend but not enough to back them up; the old woman lets out another flurry of words, begging again. The kid studies him, tiny brown face screwed up in anger as he or she studies the ground, the walls, looking for something -- a weapon, a way out. Not finding any, the kid turns to the only weapons she or he has and balls up his or her tiny hands into fists.

Sabretooth knows what he should do, by rights. He should reach out, grab the kid by those scrawny arms and use her or him as a club to take out the others. He's done it before and chances are he'll do it again.

But, he doesn't and he knows _why _he doesn't, 'cause the answer is simple enough: he's sick of killing. It was one thing, back in the day, to go up against that runt Weapon X or against Magneto's X-Men or even back before that to fight soldiers, guys with guys, people who could fight back. That was a challenge, but killing scared civilians? Tearing apart women and kids and even men who are too scared to do anything but stand there and take what he gives them? Where's the challenge? Where's the risk? Where's the _fun?_

Yeah, he knows why he doesn't want to do this, what he doesn't get is why _now_. Why this place? Why these kids? There's nothing special about them.

"I'll make you go!" the kid says, tiny could be male, could be female voice deepening into an almost adult snarl. "You come one step closer, I'll _make_ _you go!"_

The fury in the kid's voice actually makes Sabretooth take a step back. The kid is not a mutant, he knows that much, but mutants don't have the market cornered on fierce. The kid is terrified; she or he is old enough and smart enough to know that he or she doesn't stand a chance against Sabretooth but the kid is not backing down.

He locks eyes with the kid and the fight is over before it even begins. He can't do it, he cannot bring himself to kill this kid. Not for Holocaust, not for Apocalypse, not for nothing and nobody. He knows that look -- or at least he thinks he does. He's pretty sure that it's the same look he gave his Paw the day he managed to give the old man a taste of what he'd been given his entire life. Or at least he's vain enough to think that's the look he had. Whatever, it works as an excuse. "Get outta here," he says, echoing the kid. "G'wan, get."

The kid hesitates, fists still clenched so hard his or her arms vibrate with the strain. "Not without my friends."

Sabretooth snorts again, though this time he's grinning when he answers back. "'Course, with them," he says. "You and the rest, you get your asses to El Segundo, to the Air Force base there an' you might have a chance to catch a ride the hell outta here. If that don't work, you head east as fast as you can. We're gonna be mopping up L.A. for a while, so you might have a shot, I dunno, but it beats the hell out of you staying here, got me?"

"Yeah..." the kid nods, slowly. "..but...why you want to help us? You were gonna kill us." The kid hesitates again. "Weren't you?"

"Yep. But now I'm not -- you want to stand around and debate it, or you want to get the hell out of here before I change my mind?"

The kid and the rest of them don't have to be told twice. He leaves them to gather their things and make their plans. He doesn't want to hear what they're going to do next, doesn't want to risk that he might go back on his...well, not his word, but that he might change his mind and decide to take them out anyway. He heads out of the basement, back up into the Forum itself and out into Inglewood to rejoin Holocaust's forces.

# # #

They don't make it. He knows this because he sees a group of Infinites blow the old lady and four of the kids into cooked meat just before some telepathic tattletale rats him out to Holocaust. And then it's his turn to get blasted because this is his second and last strike. He fights Holocaust, fights him as hard as he can but the SOB sucks away Sabretooth's strength and wears him down enough to make the last few punches look good.

Finally, when Sabretooth is hanging from Holocaust's hand, feeling his body wanting nothing more than to shut down until the hurting stops, he wonders if it was worth it. If they're all dead, he bought them what? A few minutes? Maybe he just delayed them long enough to be blasted. If they're all dead, what the hell was the point? But, maybe because he didn't see the kid, the one he thinks of as _his_ kid, among the ones the Infinites got so maybe she or he got out, got to El Segundo, got onto a C-5 Galaxy and got airlifted the hell out of town. Because if that kid is out there, then maybe...

He blacks out before he can finish the thought and when he wakes up, well...he's got bigger problems.


End file.
